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A school for ideas
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It is the career of the future, says S. Balaram, dean of Tamil Nadu’s only design school
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Photos: S. Siva Saravanan and K. Ananthan
desigN SPEAK A student presenting her work and Prof. S. Balaram (top right)
“Design is not about applying lipstick to a gorilla”, says Professor S. Balaram. As you smile at the thought, he elaborates: “Be innovative, but meet a need”. Balaram is the one of the founding faculty and former Chairman of Education at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, and dean of the DJ Academy of Design (DJAD), Coimbatore. His aim, he says, is to motivate students to take design up as a subject of study.
Form and function
For Balaram, design and industry are inseparable. “Form is function, don’t separate the two,” he says.
“At one time the competition was based on performance, then on price. But, technology being what it is today, everyone has access to it. So, in a market flooded with products offering the same service, what is it that sets one apart from another? Design.”
“In a region so industry-rich, it is surprising that there are no design schools in Tamil Nadu. We hope DJAD will bridge that gap,” says Balaram, who has won prestigious awards like the Helen Keller Award for his work with the disabled and the Ron Mace Award for Universal Design (that says all products and services should be usable by people of all ages and abilities). He also organised the first National Workshop on Design for the Disabled.
Explaining the relevance of design, Balaram says, “Design encompasses everything from a safety pin to a strategy for global warming. After technology is perfected, what man needs is an idea which is fresh, and which applies the technology in a most beautiful way. For example, the sound recording and playback technologies were there. But it was the idea to make the playback of the sound miniaturised, which created the walkman, and later the iPods.”
In a country with a population of 1.2 billion, the number of designers produced is negligible. Balaram reels out statistics — Korea produces 36,000 designers annually. China has nearly 400 design schools. India, barely 20. There are 5,00,000 technology students graduating every year in India. A mere 600 designers trickle out in comparison. He puts this down to lack of awareness.
“Parents and students should realise that their conventional ideas will soon be obsolete. Design is the career of the future. Even if we consider every 100 technologists need one design brain, we need at least a cool 5,000 design graduates every year. No design graduate in India is without work. Many overseas companies are thinking of India as the design hub of the world, but we don’t have enough supply of designers”, laments Balaram.
About DJAD
A unit of the GKD trust founded by Dr G.K. Devarajulu of Lakshmi Machine Works.
It runs a joint programme with NID, and collaborates with the Srishti School of Art and Design, Bangalore. It is a member of the International Council of Societies of Industrial Design (ICSID) that has over 60 members in more than 50 countries representing 150,000 designers.
Courses offered
Undergraduate: 4 years; 10+2 candidates from any stream, can apply.
They can major in Industrial Design (product, furniture and interior design) or Communication Design (graphic design, short films and animation design).
Post Graduate in Product Design: 2 years; graduates from any discipline can apply.
For details visit www.djad.in, or email office@djad.in or call 0422-2610333/2610428
PANKAJA SRINIVASAN
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